Central Louisiana Economic Development Alliance President Jim Clinton says the short-term economic impact of construction alone might be about $50 million, but the long-term economic impact is “in the hundreds of millions” of dollars.

He said the project offers great potential to move the area forward.

“Ever since The Rapides Foundation published ‘Beyond High School’ in the fall of 2008, we have had clear evidence of the price we pay for not having a fully-realized community college to train those potential workers who need more than a high school degree but less than a four-year degree. This is our window of opportunity to solve that problem ... yes, for decades. I hesitate to put a number of the value of that, but not solving this problem has already cost us hundreds of millions.

“It’s great that the new site will change the landscape of downtown Alexandria. It’s far more important that it will dramatically improve the educational and workforce profiles for our region,” Clinton said.

The new campus in downtown Alexandria will cost nearly $22 million, but the city has plans for related spending of about $5 million for downtown initiatives, Roy said. Additional investments by other stakeholders should boost the overall scope of the project to about $30 million, he said.

The city is still working to nail down a precise projection on economic impact, Roy said, but normal multipliers on project of this nature would push the impact possibly over $150 million, so “you’ve got a heck of a project.”

And the impact could even be much greater than that “because education has multiple direct and indirect effects because you are increasing your job readiness.”

The impact would be felt not only in the construction project itself, but also in the new campus’ ability to better prepare the workforce for jobs and to help attract businesses which would rely heavily on workers who are trained at CLTCC.

“You’re talking about a huge investment from the private sector when they begin those partnerships with the school that they are hankering to do right now,” the mayor said.

Projections are that 82 to 84 percent of jobs to be created in Central Louisiana over the next decade will require education beyond high school but less than a four-year college degree, he said.

The Alexandria City Council on Tuesday introduced an ordinance to increase the amount of money the city is putting toward the project, which will relocate CLTCC’s campus from South MacArthur Drive to downtown.

Previously the city had committed about $2.3 million to the state project as the necessary 12 percent match when it was believed the project would be about $19 million, but city officials were recently told that the $19 million was 88 percent and that the 12 percent match would be about $2.59 million.

The ordinance would budget $2.8 million, providing a safety cushion to cover any incidental expenses that might be connected to the project so that any extra expenses wouldn’t have to go back through the council.

The council will vote on the ordinance on Sept. 2.

Roy said there is “zero doubt” that not only is the $2.8 million in city funding justified, “we would be derelict in our duties not to make this investment with this opportunity in front of us.”

An executive summary of an analysis titled “Where Value Meets Values: The Economic Impact of Community Colleges” notes the long-term benefits of investing in community colleges.

The analysis, done for the American Association of Community Colleges, says that “for every $1 of public money invested in America’s community colleges, taxpayers receive a cumulative value of $6.80 over the course of the students’ working lives. In other words, taxpayers fully recover the cost of the original investment and also receive a return of $5.80 in addition to every $1 they paid.”

Clinton said just considering a $22 million construction project, “you can conservatively assume an impact of $45-50 million during the construction phase.”

But he said the long-range effect is far greater with the CLTCC project.

“Then the longer term impact kicks in with additional new investments, businesses serving the campus, its teachers, employees and students. Add to that the impact of driving up educational outcomes, allowing us to grow existing and recruit new businesses to hire our better trained and educated workers — the total impact is then in hundreds of millions and carries on for decades,” Clinton said.